Abstract

Social judgments about other people are often made based on visual
appearance. In this study, we investigated whether visual appearance of an
interaction partner influences action coordination in social interactions. In a
novel interactive augmented reality setup participants interacted (i.e. carried
out a high-five) with a life-sized 3D avatar that was either human-looking or
robot-looking. Importantly, the kinematics of the avatars were identical for both
appearances. We examined whether motion trajectories of a high-five action and
other motion trajectory parameters such as velocity, radial error, synchrony, and
variability were modulated by the visual appearance of the avatar. Results showed
that participants carried out the high-five faster and applied different motion
trajectories for the human-looking than for the robot-looking avatar. These
findings suggest that visual appearance does not only influence social judgments
but also the immediate behavior towards the interaction partner.